Customer Reviews

Allah's Scorpion (McGarvey)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This international terrorism thriller is fast-paced and well written. Even though the author includes a wealth of information, the story never gets bogged down. My only quibble is with the character who portrays the inevitable computer genius. That particular character just doesn't sound right. I understand that the author is trying to create an eccentric feel, but it just doesn't work for me. On the whole, though, it is a very entertaining ride that I recommend to anyone interested in the genre.
I should add that I have not read any previous books by this author or with this main character and yet had no sense that I was missing information that could only be obtained from a previous book. It stands alone quite well.

It is a trite and over used phrase to describe a book as "hard to put down" or a "page turner." The problem is that neither of those phrases do this book justice. Once you pick it up and start reading about the world according to David Hagberg you have entered a time and place that seem all too real, all to possible and sometimes, all too likely.

The ninth installment on Kirk McGarvey's adventures introduces us to a new foe, a former British Royal Navy submarine captain named Rupert Graham. Graham was one of their brightest sub drivers, but was cashiered after he began to lose his judgement following the death of his wife which resulted in several international incidents. Following that he became a pirate in the South China Sea making a name for himself and eventually attracting the attention of Osama bin Laden. Graham is not a jihadist. He is a mercenary which makes him even more cunning and dangerous. Bin Laden is the one who gave him the nickname of "Allah's Scorpion." It fits.

The novel involves plans by bin Laden to blow up an oil tanker in the Panama Canal as well as acquire a submarine from which he will launch an attack on Washington D.C. Capt. Graham is very much involved in these episodes as is former CIA Director Kirk McGarvey who is attempting to thwart both plans and also to eventually try and complete his own quest to assassinate bin Laden, something he once failed to do. For first and foremost, ahead of all the various hats that McGarvey wears, he is at heart an assassin and one of the best.

To tell the plot beyond that is too difficult without giving it away. There are many twists and turns and moments of peril for all concerned. The story bristles with authenticity and keeps the story line totally within the bounds of plausabililty.

One wishes there was a Kirk McGarvey out there and as long as there is a talented author such as David Hagberg, there will be.

This newest Hagberg book starts off with a bang and never lets up.The
book begins with an Osama bin-Laden planned raid on Guantanamo Bay'sCamp Delta.The al-Qaida mujadeen are going to break four Iranian Navy men out of the facility for a terrorist mission.After a battle two American CIA agents pursue the escapees and al-Qaida agents.The agents Gloria Ibenez and Robert Talarico give chase.The al-Qaida warriors and the Iranian are killed as a result of suicides.Ibenez's pardner Talarico is also killed.
The action moves to Venezuala.Former British Royal Navy captain Rupert Graham in the employ of Osama bin-Laden seizes an oil tanker named Apurto Devlan.He plans to explode the tanker in the Panama Canal stopping all
shipping traffic for an indefinite time period.Our hero Kirk McGarvey has
entered the picture.He thwarts the attack.
At the funeral of Talarico al-Qaida terrorists launch an attack to get
MCGarvey.They once again miss him.
Captain Graham and al-Qaida have ontained a Libyan FoxTrot submarine named Shehab.They plan to launch a nuclear missile on Washington D.C.This plot is once again battled by Kirk McGarvey.It turns into quite a battle.
McGarvey decides to hunt Osama bin-Laden down and kill him.This makes for an exciting finish to the book.Be sure to read this one.
In the meantime al-Qaida and Cap

Some people may not be happy to see a new Kirk McGarvey novel hit the shelves, but I am not one of them...in fact after 'Soldier of God' I could hardly WAIT for the next adventure. However, I feel I need to bring up the fact that Kirk has been flirting with permanent retirement for several novels now, and at the end of each of the last 3, I have wondered if there would be another. Thankfully we made it to yet another one.

After resigning the position of Director of Central Intelligence in order to track an International Terrorist responsible for a large number of attacks against Americans, what is left for an aging former Field Agent and now, former Director? Save the world once again it would seem. You can take Jack Ryan, Dirk Pitt, Phillip Mercer and James Bond and put 'em all in a room together with Kirk and see who came out alive...MY money would be on McGarvey (although 24's Jack Bauer would give him a run for his money, or in this case, MY money). He is simply put one of the greatest spies put on paper. My reason for saying this is a complicated one...one that took several McGarvey novels in order to size up properly. He is first and foremost an American Patriot who dearly LOVES his country -- sometimes to a fault. He loves his family -- and they are the ONLY people in his life that can possibly compete with his love for his country. He is as dangerous as any spy in history. He is also a very flawed individual. He doesn't just waltz through a blaze of gunfire receiving nothing more than a tiny abrasion like James Bond or any number of characters in Hollywood (such as from Die Hard, or anything featuring Arnold or Stallone). What gives me a glimpse into the humanity of Kirk McGarvey would be his tormented inner self that experiences nightmares almost every time he closes his eyes at the trauma he has seen and more importantly, has caused. The repeating faces of those he has killed is enough to make him more human than a large number of REAL people who currently work in Government today.

What I truly believe sets a David Hagberg novel apart from the vast majority of techno-thrillers available today is that he knows how to tell a story and doesn't need an endless number of useless pages of nothing to get it across. The plot begins, and the action is sustained and you don't feel like you can skip large portions of the novel without losing any real substance like the vast majority of Clancy's novels. With Hagberg, if you skip a page -- sometimes even just a paragraph -- you run the risk of missing critical information necessary to what happens later on. Some may argue the same with Clancy, but I have done this myself and went on to re-read the book again later and never felt like I had lost out on anything significant.

By the way, if you like David Hagberg, try some earlier novels of his, specifically 'White House', 'By Dawn's Early Light' and DEFINITELY 'Joshua's Hammer' which is stunning -- oh and of course 'Soldier of God'. In short, if you can't already tell, I really like this guy and wouldn't hesitate to recommend his novels to everyone who enjoys a great thriller with an espionage twist. While 'Allah's Scorpion' wasn't as all-out thrill-packed as some earlier McGarvey tales, it more than made up for it with cerebral entertainment and plot development. Another Grand Slam for the CURRENT reigning Champ of Techno-Thrillers. Read. Enjoy. Repeat if necessary.

I'd been growing weary of Kirk McGarvey's adventures of late. Kill Zone and Joshua's Hammer were forgetable; Soldiers of God started out as an incredible page turner, but stalled out soon after the teaser set piece (which was almost a third of the book!) concluded.

But Allah's Scorpion had it all, great pacing, pulse-pounding maritime suspense, back alley trade craft, locations, locations, locations, and characters you can care about. Even the main villain is human with some dimensions to him (something Hagberg's villains don't always have).

Highly recommended. I'm hoping this is a start to a strong McGarvey renaissance.

Another chapter in the adventures of Kirk McGarvey. I sincerely wish we had real life assassins like McGarvey to help protect us from our enemies. This story takes McGarvey from retirement to investigate a prison break at Guantanamo where key terrorists were helped by an insider, to save the Panama Canal from a hijacked oil ship and to save Washington,D.C. from a missile launch by a Libyan submarine. Osama bin Laden was behind these plots. McGarvey made trips to Pakistan so as to once and for all take care of bin Laden. Rupert Graham, the former British navy submarine commander was an interesting evil character. Even though I very much like the continuing saga of McGarvey some things are starting to get a bit thin such as his retiring and returning to duty as well as his relationship with his understanding wife Katy who suffers thru the risks to his life.

ALLAH'S SCORPION is my first David Hagberg novel. It is a well though out, fast paced, page turning, action thriller. The location of Bin Laden's lair is an interesting twist, and could well be accurate. Loved the ending, but it can be taken at face value? Was he or wasn't he ... well you have to read the book to understand.

Hagberg did a credible job in describing the nuclear weapon, no mistakes or errors--a pleasant surprise. The assumption is that the fissile material had become critical, emitting gamma and neutron radiation, but the author did not get sidetracked by attempting to explain how.

Having deeply enjoyed Hagberg's submarine adventure "By Dawn's Early Light," I was preparing to immerse myself in another great story. While the story is compelling, it isn't quite up to the standards of the other, wiith characters that are just a little less "likeable", so you don't build a real bond with the heroes that you need to build in order to get the most out of this kind of story.

Worse, the editing of the Kindle edition is absolutely atrocious. There is hardly a single page in the entire book that doesn't have at least one typo or a hyphen in the middle of a normal word. This takes away from the legibility and keeps you from becoming immersed in the story, because incorrectly hyphenated words stop you in your tracks and make you think outside of the story, like "who edited this, anyway?" and that detracts so heavily from the experience.

All in all, a good book, and if it wasn't for the terrible editing, I would give it a much higher rating. But that takes so much away that the book simply doesn't deserve a stronger rating until that problem is resolved (should a revised edition be released, I would expect a free upgrade, and would gladly revise my review at that time).

Very good book with a good plot and good characters but was distracted by the numerous misspelled words, words jammed together and the over use of the - . Note to Mr. Hagberg: for a small fee I will proof read your next book.

One of the best books to come along in this genere. Well, written and keeps you on the edge of your seat.